Spots! Pic and update added 14NOV13

Well, it is official...sort of. Jamieson has the chicken pox! Jubin saw a spot or two Monday night, then Tuesday morning we saw 3 spots on his thighs that we took for bug bites (thought there were no biting insects in NI?), and then Avril (his childminder) pointed out Tuesday afternoon that there were now more - on his face and arms...and, suggested that perhaps it was the chicken pox. Duh! He must have picked it up in Spain last week.

Anyway, he doesn't seem at all bothered by the spots. I took him to the UHC this morning and the doctor said something along the lines of "Yep, it is probably chicken pox...It is hard to tell for sure because it appears to be a mild case and the spots are so small, but it probably is...so, keep him away from other kids for 5 days and call back if he starts to feel unwell". Pic below of his "spots" on face - only ended up with ~20 spots like that, and never really seemed bothered by them at all. The mildness of the case might be in part due to the fact that he is still nursing, so is getting some of my antibodies through my milk. Phew!

Kind of ironic since we waited until this summer to get Watson the vaccine, thinking that he might get the disease and then have natural immunity. Oh well. In reality, I am glad he got the vaccine this summer because he would be miserable if he had the chicken pox this week and had to stay home all week from school. And, it would have been much harder to have BOTH kids home all week together... It is interesting, though, how the chicken pox vaccine appears to be a U.S. thing. No one (except doctors) here seems to know that it even exists (the vaccine), and most of the families around us have all had the pox already. In fact, the parents of the 2 other babies at Jamie's childminder's house were hoping that they would get it from him!